Shakespeare And The Bechdel Test
| July 14th, 2008The Bechdel Test — which I mistakenly called The Mo Movie Measure (I’m both inaccurate and a sucker for alliteration) — asks if a movie (or play, comic, etc) has these traits:
1) there are at least two named female characters, who
2) talk to each other about
3) something other than a man.
Kira Dancing wonders how many of Shekespeare’s plays pass the Bechdel Test. There’s a fun discussion going on in her comments.
July 14th, 2008 at 6:13 pm
OMG Amp linked to meee!!! Whee!!!
This comment was written by kira_dancing.Report this comment to the moderators
July 14th, 2008 at 6:20 pm
I nominate “Harold and Kumar Go To White Castle” as passing the Ginger Test.
Christy and Clarissa, the girls Harold and Kumar meet at Princeton, talk about their noxious bowel movements.
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July 14th, 2008 at 7:29 pm
Given that originally all the female roles were played by boys (or men) it’s difficult.
That said, how do you count it if the guy the women are talking about is actually a woman in disguise. Because I’m thinking of Twelfth Night…
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July 14th, 2008 at 8:19 pm
I counted Twelfth Night but that’s partly just ’cause I love it :0)
Personally, I like to keep the bar really, really low on the Mo Movie Bechdel Ginger Test Measure, mainly because even when you let things pass for very brief conversations or conversations-where-she-thinks-he’s-a-dude, most of contemporary cinema fails massively, which kind of makes the point.
And in spite of the women’s roles being played by men (which wasn’t Shakespeare’s fault, it was just the law of the land), I actually think Shakespeare did a decent job of not being completely male-focused; I think the fact that the characters were played by men isn’t that relevant, when we’re talking about the writer– I think he was imagining female characters, and that the dialogue among them can be seen as dialogue among women. Of course, he had a pretty enlightened (and kickass) patron, too. ;0)
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July 14th, 2008 at 10:40 pm
Dude! Ampersand! How did you happen across Kira’s livejournal? This is awesome!
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July 14th, 2008 at 10:47 pm
Ah. Right. She linked to you.
*sigh*
I’m dumb.
—Myca
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July 15th, 2008 at 12:58 am
I take it you know Kira?
“The Mo Movie Bechdel Ginger Test Measure.” LOL!
I agree with Kira: the sex of the actor is irrelevant, only the sex of the character counts for the MMBGTM. But female characters disguised as male do count as female for MMBGTM purposes.
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July 15th, 2008 at 2:10 am
It took me a bit, but I just realized: Macbeth! The Weird Sisters talk about Macbeth, but they talk about general weird witch stuff too.
“What have you been doing my sister”
“Killing swine”
Passed!
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July 15th, 2008 at 4:25 am
Razner: As pointed out on Kira’s LJ, the witches in Macbeth don’t have names, so it’s technically a fail. I am tempted to pass them because they are clearly characters and important ones at that, even if they don’t have names. They are, however, essentially interchangable so maybe their dialogue is more like a single character talking to herself than a real multi-person interaction?
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July 15th, 2008 at 7:15 am
Very interesting. Actually, many “chick flicks” wouldn’t even pass this test. For instance, Sex and the City. Do they talk about anything other than men throughout the whole movie?
I’d like to add “or children”, because women are usually depicted as either girlfriends/wives or mothers.
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July 15th, 2008 at 9:29 am
Raznor wrote:
I don’t know, Raznor. After some of the comments I’ve read on some of the blogs I’ve linked to from the blog list here - and some private conversations among women that I’ve overheard - I wouldn’t presume that the comment about killing swine didn’t actually refer to men.
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